Online Learning Center

FPMT News Around the World

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at the Light of the Path retreat, North Carolina, USA, 2009

Going on a meditation retreat can be an amazingly rewarding experience for a Dharma practitioner, but sometimes the conditions for an extended break from daily life aren’t there. The FPMT Online Learning Center, however, offers students a variety of educational programs to support their home study and also their stay-at-home retreats. Even if you have only one free day or afternoon, consider finding a quiet space and following one of the free modules offered on the Online Learning Center.

Students inspired by FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche might try the first module of the Living in the Path program called “Motivation for Life.” In five separate sessions, students receive guided instruction aimed at developing their appreciation of precious human birth, the truth of impermanence, karma and the power of bodhichitta. The sessions include video teachings from the 2009 Light of the Path retreat, readings, meditations, mindfulness exercises and service activities all to help make daily life and practice most meaningful.

August 2011 eZine

“The Diamond Cutter Meditation” is another course freely available from Living in the Path. This course feature instructions from Lama Zopa Rinpoche on how to meditate on the well known verse on emptiness and impermanence from the Diamond Cutter Sutra(also known as the Vajra Cutter Sutra). In two sessions, students receive instruction, accompanied by readings and activities, to help them learn to apply the verse’s meaning in daily life.

With 158 centers, projects and services around the globe, there is always news on FPMT activities, teachers and events. Mandala hopes to share as many of these timely stories as possible. If you have news you would like to share, please let us know.

What is the FPMT Online Learning Center?

With over 50 modules available in English, Spanish and French, and more than 20,000 registered users, the FPMT Online Learning Center provides an enormous opportunity to learn. Students who want to engage in the comprehensive programs developed by FPMT Education Services can easily join other students from all parts of the world in their studies and practice without leaving home.

Perhaps you’ve studied Buddhism for years in a town with no Buddhist center and feel you have no one to talk to about progressing on the path. Maybe you already participate in online social forums and would love to do so with a spiritual community. Or perhaps a question arises at 3:00 a.m. that needs an answer ASAP. Even if you already attend a Dharma center, the Online Learning Center may offer additional Dharma connections, fit your schedule better, and give you an opportunity to study a program not offered locally.

The Online Learning Center brings ease, structure and depth to your studies. All these resources can be found through the convenience of a module’s single webpage, and with links provided to other resources, you can study without the need to search the web for related materials. Everything can be stored digitally or streamed directly from the web, and modules can be completed on your own time and pace.

How to get started and take advantage of the Online Learning Center:

Join Friends of FPMT now, and immediately have access to a number of course modules. Friends of FPMT who make monthly or annual contributions have access to additional modules, receive downloadable ebooks and PDF’s from FPMT Education Service, get a year’s subscription to Mandala Publications, and other great gifts!

You can purchase individual modules of the programs at the Foundation Store. Choose the “online” version of your selected module.

Scholarships are also available to students with financial need upon request.

To put an end to our samsaric suffering, we must do two things: One is to purify the negative actions we’ve done every day of our lives and in our infinite previous lives as well. We also have to change our minds and actions and abstain from creating further negativities.